Blackout a Blip for Cable Ad Sales

Several major cable programmers claimed that they didn’t take hits on thead-sales side due to the blackout.

And the power outage didn’t pull the plug on cable’s overall ratingsgrowth.

"At the end of the day, it’s really a thimble of water in the ocean," saidLou LaTorre, president of advertising sales for Fox Cable Networks Group. "It’snot like someone is going to spend $10 million over the course of a year andthey’re going to say, ‘You owe me 36 viewers because of that blackout week.':

Officials at Turner Broadcasting System Inc. and ABC Cable Networks Groupalso said they wouldn’t have to give sponsors make-goods as a result of the Aug.14 blackout, which cut the power in major markets such as New York, Detroit andCleveland.

National cable advertisers buy ad time in such quantity, and over such longcontinuums of time, that the blackout had minimal impact, according toLaTorre.

Cable still drew its second-largest primetime share ever -- 56.3 -- duringthe week of Aug. 11-17, according to a Cabletelevision Advertising Bureauanalysis of Nielsen Media Research data. That was up from 53.4 the year-agoperiod.

Cable’s delivery was 32.9 million households, up from 31.0 a year ago, whileits ratings were a 30.9 versus 29.4 a year ago.

The seven broadcast networks were down for that week in all categories.Broadcast’s share was 35.0 versus 37.9 the same period a year ago, the CAB said.Broadcast’s delivery dipped to 20.4 million homes from 22 million a year ago,while ratings dropped slightly to 19.1 from a 20.9 a year ago.

There was an information blackout as to how the outage affected local cablead sales. Officials at two big MSOs in New York -- Time Warner Cable andCablevision Systems Corp. -- couldn’t be reached for comment.

Comcast Corp. is the dominant operator in Detroit, which has a majorinterconnect, and it has a large system in northern New Jersey. "We’re stillgathering information and trying to assess the impact," a spokeswoman forComcast Ad Sales said.